Probably Wouldn't Be This Way
by venusguytrap
Summary: Bakura lost Ryou and he doesn't know what to do with his immortality anymore now that he's alone.... Rating to be safe, very angsty shonen ai.


I liked writing this one.

I don't own the song nor Yu-Gi-Oh!.

I like them though.

_**Probably Wouldn't Be This Way**_

_Got a date a week from Friday with Malik's son  
Everybody says he's crazy  
I'll have to see_

_I finally moved to Tokyo when the summer came  
I won't have to pay that boy to rake my leaves_

Bakura moved through the rainy streets slowly, as if he had weights on his ankles. There were few people on the streets, and those who were had umbrellas. Bakura, however, had an old worn jacket that Ryou had given him for a present about thirty years earlier, back when they all were still teens. Bakura was still a teen.

The ancient boy kept his head down, sometimes closing his eyes for long periods of time. He didn't need to see, he had walked this path too many times not to know where he was going. Plus, there wasn't much _to_ see. Most of the stores were closed, it was a Sunday, and this part of the city was mostly for nightlife, it was late morning.

_I'm probably going on and on  
It seems I'm doing more of that these days_

He could hear distant sounds of thunder every now and then. The real storm was probably over where Battle City had once been; he was a several miles north of there, visiting the others as he often did on weekends nowadays. But it was always depressing for him and everyone knew it so this weekend, Malik had planned for Bakura to go on a date with his son, more than willing to go, Kohaku. He was a beautiful boy, no doubt about that, looking like Malik a lot but with his mother's, Kotone's, blue eyes. He was also slender and charming, quite the attractive for both boy and girl, even Bakura found him attractive, but… after Ryou… he just wasn't interested. Additionally, it'd be kinda weird to date your best friend's teenage son. I mean, think about it.

_I probably wouldn't be this way_

_I probably wouldn't hurt so bad  
I never pictured every minute without you in it  
Oh, you left so fast_

But, Bakura agreed to go, just for the others' sake. They were worried about him, no doubt about that. He heard them talking in the evening when he told them he was going to go to bed early, he never actually went to sleep until much later, he just liked to think. Think, and pretend that Ryou was there, loving him again, with him… He'd whisper to the one he loved every night, as crazy as it sounds. He wondered what Ryou would think if he found out.

_Sometimes I see you standing there  
Sometimes it's like I'm losing touch_

'Ryou…' he thought, still trudging down the road. 'Everyone's getting so old now, they're at least in their early forties… But I'm still the same…' he thought sadly, stopping for only a moment to look at his rain-soaked reflection in the darkened window of a shop next to him. His eyes widened as he realized what kind of shop it was. It was an art shop selling paintings and sculptures. One that had particularly caught his eye was the small Barbie sized figure that was placed directly on a table in front of him where he had been looking at his reflection. He blinked the rain off his eyelashes, wiping his face before pressing his face up against the window to get a better look. But the image of what he had thought the statue had been was gone. It was just a regular angel sculpture, like one you'd see in a bigger size at a graveyard, or a Martina McBride video.

'But… I was almost positive…! No… I have to stop thinking like that.' Bakura thought firmly, lowering his head and continuing on his lonely journey. _Sometimes I feel that I'm so lucky to have had the chance to love this much  
God gave me a moment's grace  
'Cause if I'd never seen your face  
I probably wouldn't be this way_

He just wished he didn't have to make the journey. He just wished Ryou was with him, to love him again instead of abandoning him, leaving the darker side to dwell in misery without the only one he'd ever loved. The one who had taught him to love so deeply, so strongly! But… he knew that it was unpreventable, destiny wouldn't change for the sake of love, it never had. Bakura was cursed and he knew it. But… he wondered sometimes, dreamed about it at night, if he'd never met Ryou. If he'd never been Ryou's hikari.

'Would I still be in that god-damned ring?' Bakura wondered. 'Doomed for all eternity? Never to leave the darkness, never to see the light?' And whenever he did have a nightmare about it, he'd wake up and almost cry. But he never did. 'The King of Thieves never cries!' He thought determinedly.

_Yami says that I just shouldn't speak to you  
My conscience says that I should just move on_

'_You did, when it happened. You cried when you found out what was going to happen. You cried while it was happening.' _Nagged a voice in his head. Somehow, it sounded like Ryou.

'That was different. It's over now, I can't change it. I can't cry.' Bakura argued with the voice, as if he were a stubborn child.

'_All you're doing is killing yourself_._' _Said the voice.

Bakura bitterly chuckled. 'How can you kill someone who can't die? Who's already dead? Who won't change or age a single day?'

'_Mentally.'_

'Tch, there's no such thing. I'm walking, aren't I? I'm not brain-dead…'

'_For a guy that can strategize how to conquer entire dimensions and win almost any tournament, you can be _really_ stupid.' _

'Who the hell are you again?'

'_A little thing you haven't talked to in a loooooong time, your conscience.'_

'Huh…' Bakura thought idly. 'Didn't know I had one…'

'_You didn't need one as long as you had Ryou with you. Neither does Yami Yugi. I know it's hard for you, but you have to keep going on. You can't just stop living!' _

Bakura scowled. 'I'm already dead!'

'_That's not what I meant and you know it!'_

'Andthat stupid git of a pharaoh doesn't know what he's talking about! He never went through a decimal of the pain I went through! So why don't you just shut up and leave me _alone_!'

His conscience didn't reply as Bakura automatically jumped up and swung himself over the fence to his private shortcut into the graveyard.

_You oughta see the way these people look at me  
When they see me 'round here talking to this stone_

_Everybody thinks I've lost my mind  
But I just take it day by day_

Bakura sighed as he walked carefully between the gravestones, now the only sounds he could hear being the rain pattering against the stones of different people. He couldn't even hear the sounds of his own footsteps he moved so swiftly and quietly. He may have been changed since back in Egypt, but he was still the King of Thieves.

The graveyard was deserted, whether it was from the bad weather, or it's effect on people, Bakura didn't care. He liked the privacy as he made his way to the old willow tree; it's branches seemingly protecting the only three graves under it. The weeping willow seemed to shelter Bakura from much of the rain before he wiped the rain from his face onto his jacket sleeve as he bowed to the three people under the stones.

The first tomb under the earth held a woman who had died giving birth to her youngest daughter, a woman that Bakura had never seen in person but had seen in pictures in Ryou's house before but had only taken notice of them when he and Ryou's relationship deepened. From the photos, she had long straight silvery white hair and blue eyes, different from Ryou's chocolate brown. She was beautiful and young looking, in an elegant sort of way, that is.

The second, in the middle of the two (in case that wasn't obvious), held a young girl Bakura had only seen a few times, in fact, he'd killed her. He remembered her well though, and regretted what he'd done deeply everyday. She had always been a playful girl, looking much like the mother, but inheriting her father's brown chocolate eyes and his fluffy hair, but having her mother's white color. She always looked unusually pale, but she had always been smiling until the end… Bakura remembered seeing her first cry when he had been about to sink his knife within her. He was glad he'd never shared that memory with Ryou, but he felt guilty for not doing so.

'It would've killed him…' Bakura thought. But as he turned to the third on the other end he smiled softly, sadly. "But I guess it's too late for that now, isn't it?" He whispered to the stone which read:

_Ryou Bakura_

_A beloved son, brother, lover, and light to all_

"Hey, Ryou. What's up?" He spoke softly, as if having a conversation with him as he had before he'd gotten sick thirty years before, a year after the final incident for the Millennium Items. Before they'd sacrificed the items to give the yamis bodies. Before Ryou had known that Bakura would never be able to grow up with him and die together, to meet in the afterlife and love each other forever…

_I probably wouldn't be this way  
I probably wouldn't hurt so bad  
I never pictured every minute without you in it  
Oh, you left so fast_

Bakura thought back to the time Ryou had gone to the doctor because he hadn't been feeling well at all. He remembered his hikari trying to tell him what was wrong with him as Ryou cried.

**Flashback**

"I'm sorry, Mr. Bakura…" Dr. Satou murmured quietly as she took Ryou's hand in her own. "It's… it's…" she seemed to choke on her own words, tears filling her eyes as she looked at Mr. Bakura's, one of her best friends, son. Ryou bit his lip, trying to prepare himself as he sat on the bedlike counter in the room. Bakura was listening, but he was getting annoyed with all of this, but he didn't interrupt, he didn't want to make Ryou upset. "It's… osteosarcoma. A type of bone cancer."

Ryou gasped, putting a hand to his mouth in shock, eyes welling up with tears. "N-No…" he whispered. "Oh, God, please… no…"

"What is it?!" Bakura snapped, looking at both people earnestly. "We can just get some medicine and go, right? Like when I got sick a few months ago and---"

"Yami." Ryou stopped him, a tear running down his face as he shook his head.

Bakura stood slowly, placing Ryou's clothes down, Ryou only wore a hospital gown at the time and had asked for Bakura to hold onto his clothes as they ran a few tests.

"We can try the chemo…" Dr. Satou suggested, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and sniffing. She was looking at her clipboard as she spoke to Ryou but the boy merely sat there, staring at his darker half, willing him to understand.

"Okay!" Bakura said, nodding frantically, turning his head to the woman. "We'll try that!"

"Bakura, it's not that simple!" Ryou cried before turning back to his lifelong doctor. "Or… is it? Is there a good chance?"

Dr. Satou looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "We're going to try our hardest. But I'm not going to lie, it doesn't look good. I think we didn't catch it in time…"

"What is it?!" Bakura roared, actually frighten by all this talk and tears. "What's wrong with Ryou?!"

"Yami, it's bone cancer! It's _cancer_!"

But Bakura couldn't understand why the two stared at him with sad eyes, both crying. He had never imagined in his worst nightmares the things that had followed.

**End Flashback**

_Sometimes I see you standing there  
Sometimes I feel an angel's touch  
Sometimes I feel that I'm so lucky to have had the chance to love this much_

"You lost all your beautiful white locks, your strength, your hope… I remember nights when I just held you and we just knew each other's thoughts, not just through the mind link. I remember you trying not to let me see what you were doing in that room when I finally broke in when I heard you crying out in pain, tubes in your body. You were so frail… You never got better." Bakura whispered to the stone, lost in his thoughts of when he saw Ryou in chemotherapy. "And then, you slipped from my grasp that night I last held you. I couldn't save you and it killed me inside. It was worse than anything I'd ever gone through."

**Flashback**

"K-Kura?" Ryou whimpered hoarsely from his bed.

"Hn?" His yami replied as he breathed Ryou's warm scent as he held his hikari's frail body in his arms.

"Can you see the sun?" He asked, staring out the window directly in front of them.

Bakura opened his eye to see the sun slowly setting behind the hills.

"Yes." He replied softly in Ryou's ear. He looked to see the sunlight reflected in his hikari's glazed brown eyes, so angelic.

"Don't forget the light…" He whispered.

Bakura nodded. "I won't."

He knew what his hikari truly meant and he only held him tighter.

"I won't let you leave me alone!" He protested, stroking the younger boy's hand gently. The boy with no hair smiled softly.

"I won't. I swear I'll always be with you as your light forever. But, in this state, I'm suffering… I'm making you suffer…"

"I'm not the one who's sick!" Bakura cried, voice cracking in mid sentence.

"But I'm causing you pain in your heart. I have to leave this form and go to another. And until the time we can see each other in the same form again, I'll be with you, waiting until we are rejoined as lovers forever…" He said, a tear falling off his chin and onto Bakura's hand. "I love you…"

"I love you more than anything…"

"Promise me you won't… won't try to kill yourself… Promise me you'll live and try to be happy."

"But---"

"Yami, please!" he whimpered, tightening his grip on Bakura's wrist.

"I promise!" Bakura whispered, a tear falling from his eye. "I promise, Ryou…" His voice came out in a higher pitch. "I love you!"

"I love you too… Don't… forget… the… light…" Ryou whispered before his yami kissed his cheek gently.

"I won't. I promise you." Bakura whispered before the boy's suffering passed and the grip on Bakura's wrist went limp. "…Ryou?" he sniffed. "Ryou?" He asked again. His hikari didn't respond as the sun disappeared beyond the hills. "RYOU!"

**End Flashback**

_God gave me a moment's grace  
'Cause if I'd never seen your face  
I probably wouldn't be this way_

"But you changed me, made me keep my promises. I'll never forget you. I will wait for the end of the world if that what it means to wait for my life to finally end." He whispered. "Thank you for letting me know what love means."

The rain had slowly stopped as he'd been talking and thinking, lost in the sorrowful memories. The white-haired man stood slowly, taking off his soaked jacket and slinging it over his shoulder and nodding at the two women's graves and leaning to the third and most important to him.

_Probably wouldn't be this way…_

"Goodbye, Ryou…" he whispered to the stone, kissing it softly before turning and bowing his head as he left the willow. He smiled softly as he paused for a moment, feeling a small ray of sun peaking through the clouds warming him slightly. "Well, _I've got a date a week from Friday with Malik's son. Everybody says I'm crazy… Guess I'll have to see…_"


End file.
